Birgit Nilsson is regarded as the world's leading Wagnerian soprano of the post-war generation. She spent a dozen years performing in her native Sweden and on the European continent before a 1959 debut at the Metropolitan Opera of New York that was heralded on the front page of the New York Times the next morning. Nilsson was the Met's star for more than 20 memorable seasons, and came to be indelibly associated with the larger-than-life female leads written by German Romantic composer Richard Wagner. The Wagnerian repertoire, based largely on Teutonic mythology, includes Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan und Isolde; many of them are productions known to exhaust their performers. After her 1959 debut as Isolde, Nilsson came to be considered the preeminent interpreter of the role, but she also won praise for her stellar performances in Turandot and Elektra.

Nilsson was born Birgit Marta Svennsson in 1918 in Vastra Karup (West Karup), a town in the southern Swedish province of Skåne. Her father had wished for a boy, and to make up for his disappointment, gave the infant the Nilsson surname ("son of Nils") that would have been bestowed on a son. She grew up in a farming community where her father was the sixth generation of his family to work the land, and was expected to marry a local boy, preferably a farmer. At the age of 10, however, Nilsson asked the choirmaster in a neighboring parish if she could join his choir, and he grudgingly allowed her to audition only when a member bowed out due to illness. Upon hearing her, he predicted, "You are going to be a great singer," a profile on her in the New York Times reported. Nilsson had demonstrated innate musical talents: she was able to sight-read music, and possessed absolute pitch. But the choirmaster fell ill, and she was not able sing again for him for a few years. Meanwhile, her parents encouraged her to take home-economics courses at a local college, where she often won the lead in the school musicals instead. She also took over an increasing number of farm chores.

When she met with the choirmaster once again, he urged her to be more decisive about her future, and offered to recommend her to the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm; he also promised to help train for her audition. Her family was greatly upset by the news; no one in their family had ever even visited Stockholm, let alone relocated there entirely. Her mother provided her with a small inheritance she had received from a relative, but Nilsson's father refused to say goodbye when she left home in 1941. She was also fortunate to win a scholarship, but often encountered snobbery from her fellow students and teachers, who poked fun at her simple origins and derided the operatic ambitions of a "farmer's daughter."

After 1943, Nilsson studied at the Royal Opera School, also in Stockholm, from which she graduated in 1946. That same year, she was invited to step in at the last minute for a Royal Stockholm Opera performer who had fallen ill. She accepted, and had only three days to prepare for her debut as Agathe in Der Freischütz, an opera from Carl Maria von Weber. Her nerves were frayed that October night, and she recalled walking to the Royal Opera from her modest apartment by herself that night in an interview with David Blum for his book Quintet: Five Journeys Toward Musical Fulfillment. She remembered feeling overwhelmed, and paused on one of the small bridges that dot the Swedish capital. "I was very depressed, and I thought, I've tried my best--I've struggled for all of these years--and it's led to nothing but disaster," she told Blum. "The future looked hopeless; I stared into the water and thought about jumping in. Somehow--I don't know how--I found myself on stage. My knees were shaking so hard that I had to cover them with the cloth Agathe is supposed to be embroidering." Nilsson made only one error that night, but she was not invited to sing any other roles until the next season, when she made her formal debut in the title role in Giuseppi Verdi's Lady Macbeth.

The trajectory of Nilsson's career gained speed as she became the star performer of the Royal Stockholm Opera. Her first appearance outside of Sweden came in 1951 as Elektra in Mozart's Idomeneo, staged for the renowned Glyndebourne Festival in the United Kingdom. Officials at the Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria, which stages the works of Wagner in a world-famous rite, invited Nilsson to perform the very next week, but she was delayed by other contractual obligations; she made her Bayreuth debut as Elsa in Lohengrin in 1954. The famed Teatro alla Scala in Milan also offered Nilsson a contract, but she declined, feeling it was too early in her career for such a triumph. She made her American debut at the Hollywood Bowl in 1956, and sang with the opera companies of Chicago and San Francisco as well. Her London debut was dramatic one: she appeared as Brünnhilde in Wagner's complete Ring cycle of four operas at Covent Garden in 1957. She was asked to open the 370th season at Milan's La Scala in December of 1958 as Turandot, becoming only the second non-Italian, after Greek diva Maria Callas, to win such an honor.

Nilsson debuted at the Metropolitan Opera of New York in December of 1959 in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. The next morning's New York Times stated that Nilsson took on "one of the most demanding roles in the repertory and charged it with power and exaltation," enthused Howard Taubman. "With a voice of extraordinary size, suppleness and brilliance, she dominated the stage and the performance. Isolde's fury and Isolde's passion were as consuming as cataclysms of nature." The audience at the Met roared when she appeared for her solo bow, and critics hailed her as the heir to another famed Swedish soprano, Kirsten Flagstad, who had sang the role two decades earlier and received a similarly enthusiastic response. Taubman praised Nilsson's voice. "It can be whitish, to use the jargon of the vocal trade, but it can also glow with warmth," the New York Times critic wrote. "Miss Nilsson can do just what she wishes with this instrument. She can subdue it to a wisp of tone and she can modulate phrases with subtlety. She has a sure grip on the emotional curve of one of opera's most challenging roles."

By 1960, Nilsson was one of highest paid performers in opera. She was a frequent presence at the Bayreuth Festival and on stage with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich; after a performance with the Vienna State Opera, she once received 75 curtain calls, a post-performance honor that lasted nearly as long as the performance itself. The Brunnhilde, Elsa, and Turandot roles came to be her signature leads, but she eventually expanded her repertoire to include Tosca and Aïda. Nilsson also came to be associated with the operas of another famed German composer, Richard Strauss, particularly in Die Frau ohne Schatten as the Dyer's Wife, and in Strauss's version of Elektra. She first sang this latter role in 1965, but was initially apprehensive about doing so: "I was worried that it would be a voice killer," she told Blum in Quintet. "I had heard an Elektra over the radio--she was shouting and screaming all the time. But when I opened the score, I found that there are so many places, especially after Klytemnestra leaves, where Elektra can sing softly and lyrically."

Nilsson's interpretation of Elektra came to be considered one of modern opera's finest moments. The conductor Sir Georg Solti praised her efforts, asserting, "When you thought that a high note couldn't be sung better, she'd sing the next one equally gloriously," Solti told Blum in Quintet. "Her singing had boundless energy--musicality, security. She was a marvel of vocal distinction. There will not be a better Elektra in the coming 50 years." Nilsson's talents and capacity as a performer were so legendary that she once sang two roles in the same opera in the 1966 Metropolitan Opera staging of Wagner's Tannhäuser. She has said that singing the dual roles of Venus and Elisabeth was, to her, one of her greatest achievements. The diva was often noted for her sense of humor and personal warmth. She never employed a staff, even at the height of her career, and preferred a cold beer after a performance instead of champagne.

Nilsson possessed a vocal range so impressive that her high notes were once mistaken for a fire alarm. She has shattered windows and even a turquoise gemstone once; recording engineers usually cautioned her to step away from the microphone for the high notes. Some of her most impressive performances are available in recorded versions. Her first-ever German-language performance as Brunnhilde in Wagner's Götterdammerung, staged in Munich in 1955, was re-released on the Orfeo label in 1995. A critic for Opera News called Nilsson's performance "vocally fearless and radiant." Strauss: Elektra: Salome Final Scene, from 1992, is the recorded version of her 1965 Vienna State Opera performance in that role. One of her earliest live records, Wagner: DieWalküre, Act I, dating from 1953, was remastered by the BellaVoce label in 1998.

Nilsson gradually retired, taking on fewer roles each season, until she made her final curtain call in 1984. She had already started to teach master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, in which she encouraged her students to try horseback riding to improve their voice--"if your family has a horse," the farm-born Nilsson conceded. "Some families don't. But ride a bicycle uphill, in the lowest gear. The next day, where it hurts, there is your breath support." She continued to teach such classes until 1991, when she retired to Sweden, where one of her two homes is the farmhouse where she grew up. She met her husband, Bertil Niklasson, who also hails from a Skåne farming family, on a train in 1945. The soprano wrote a memoir, Mina minnesbilder, in 1977 which was translated for English-speaking fans four years later as My Memoirs in Pictures.

by Carol Brennan

Birgit Nilsson's Career

Made professional debut October 9, 1946, as Agathe in Der Freischütz, Royal Opera, Stockholm; appeared at Glyndebourne Festival, 1951; made Metropolitan Opera of New York debut as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, 1959; retired from performing, 1984. Taught master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, 1983-91; published memoirs, My Memoirs in Pictures, 1981.

Birgit Nilsson's Awards

Swedish Royal Court Singer, 1954, Austrian Kammersaengerin and honorary member of the Vienna State Opera, 1968, and Bavarian Kammersaengerin, 1970; medal for promotion of art and music from Swedish Royal Academy of Music, 1968; Mus.D. from Andover University, 1970, Manhattan School of Music, 1982, and Amherst College; commander of the Order of Vasa, first class, 1975; Swedish Golden Medal illis quorum, 1981; D.F.A. from Michigan State University, 1982; honorary member of Royal Academy of Music (London).

Ms Birgit Nilsson was not just a fabulous opera singer with Wagner as her speciality. She was also a fabulous personality, light, bright and witty. A very nice person indeed. This showed when she was interviewed or participated in Swedish TV shows. She was not afraid of "losing face" by putting up with gamelike events in TV studios, because she knew she was the best in her genre. We really miss her. I wept when she died although I had never met her. She meant such a lot to Swedish serious music life and the image of Sweden as a music nation. Many have followed in her footsteps inspired by her, Ms Ann-Sofi von Otter is one.
Now (5th Dec, 2008)SHE HAS FOUNDED THE WORLD'S LARGEST MUSIC AWARD WITH PRIZE MONEY OF ONE MILLION US DOLLARS.
This has been revealed in her will where she also appointed the first award winner in a sealed envelope. The winner is to be announced beginning spring 2009. Read in Swedish on http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2374&a=860089 which is Sweden's largest daily paper.

over 10 years ago

An incredibly charming personality in addition to being a great artist!- Even her dresses are in special good taste...And what a sense of humour, and modesty, and gentleness!One just falls in love with the human "trumpet", as her teacher called her...I guess Wagner etc. used to dream about such "trumpets" for their operas...What a pity she's not with us anymore...Only in the spirit!!!We love you, Birgit!!!( You know it!)